Good News SEO Resellers – SMBs to Raise 2013 Technology, Marketing Budgets

Small and medium businesses are a great prospect for SEO resellers. In fact, we suspect most of your clients would be from this segment of the economy. This statement, just to be clear, is purely from personal experience and should not be taken as a statistic. But until there’s data to prove otherwise, we can assume that most of our clients are SMBs. This is why news of plans to increase their budget for technology and marketing this year is such music to our ears.

For one, it means SMBs are bullish on business and are looking forward to growing this year. They are spending after all and because they have long been considered the “backbone of the economy,” this bids good news to the economy, too. That economic benefit aside, white label SEO resellers just like you are in a great position to gain from this anticipated increase in spending.

Technology Crucial for SMBs

A new study conducted for technology provider Cbeyond Inc. found that 64% of SMBs (sometimes called SMEs or small and medium enterprises) plan to increase their budget for technology this year.  The report, “Summer 2013 Cbeyond Business Leader Snapshot,” also said that 31% of companies planned to retain their existing budgets. Those who plan to slash tech spending in 2013 are a minority at 5%. The researchers from market research company StrateSci who conducted the Cbeyond study surveyed over 711 senior executives at businesses with fewer than 250 employees.

Cbeyond CMO Paul Carmody attributed the anticipated budget raise to technology becoming more and more critical to smaller enterprises. “We know most of these businesses do not have IT departments. They are not IT experts, and there is a need for someone to do tech work for them,” Carmody told marketing strategy magazine B to B.

The Technologies SMBs Need the Most

When asked to rate the most crucial technologies for operations, respondents ranked network access (95%) as the most critical. Desktop/laptop management (92%) and mobile services (93%) composed the top three.
Now, this is the part that SEO resellers want to hear. When it comes to what type of communications are crucial for growing their business, respondents rated social media as among the most important. Facebook, Twitter, and other social media platforms earned the approval of 47% of respondents.

Another interesting nugget: 22% of surveyed executives said social mobile platforms like Google Maps and Foursquare are important to growing their business. This means SMBs are increasing their technology budget for this year and are spending more on social media and social mobile to grow their business. This also means they will be looking for help in using these platforms so they can grow their business. It is now your job top look for these businesses and offer them white label social media optimization or local buzz services.

Overall Marketing 2013 Budget to Go Up

SMBs plan to spend more on technology and marketing this year. (Source: Cbeyond, Aweber)

Apart from technology spending, SMEs also plan to increase their budgets for marketing. Earlier this year, email marketing provider Aweber reported a study that found that 97% of marketers plan to at least maintain their marketing budget. Some 68% plan to raise it. Also, some 47% of respondents said they felt the economy had changed positively last year.

Hunter Boyle, senior business development manager at AWeber attributed the anticipated raise to a more optimistic outlook on the part of SMBs. “There was plenty of uncertainty in 2012, but SMBs are resilient, and 58% said they were optimistic about revenue growth for the 2012 holiday season,” he said. If this doesn't excite the SEO reseller in you, what else will?

What to Offer SMBs Planning to Spend More

Smaller businesses are more particular when it comes to spending because they have limited capital, unlike their bigger counterparts. That is why they are sometimes reluctant to spend on innovative solutions, both for operations and marketing. But this year, they have a more positive outlook and you should help them convert this optimism into profit.

As found by the technology survey, SMEs find social media crucial in growing their business. If they have SEO campaigns running, offer social media optimization as an add-on. Help them create Facebook and Twitter pages that are not only complete, but are also optimized to be visible and attractive to their prospects. If they want to focus on their SEO, offer Google+ as the social add-on. Posts on the Google-owned social network can be indexed and can affect organic rankings.

Apart from social media, you can also pitch mobile responsive web design to your prospects. If this is the year they are willing to spend more on technology and marketing, then this is the year they should move a mobile responsive site, or a site that properly loads on mobile platforms like tablets and smartphones. This is Google’s “preferred” approach to catering to mobile visitors. And because mobile Internet users are expected to outnumber desktop users by next year, getting a mobile responsive website is also a long-term technological investment for any SMB.